Authorities Stitch Together Evidence Of Bombing Suspect Terry Nichols' Life That Shows A Failed Farmer And Soldier Who Was Left With Little Except His Hatred For The Government

Terry ground his own flour and baked his own bread, taking care to avoid chemical-laced ingredients.

In 1988, with his marriage falling apart and his life going nowhere, Nichols, then 33, joined the Army, and was stationed in a close-knit unit with McVeigh.

While Nichols was in the military, his wife, Lana, filed for divorce. At around the same time, Nichols met a Filipino woman, Marife Torres. It is unclear when they married, but in 1992, she filed court papers in Michigan giving him power of attorney as her husband.

While his buddy McVeigh rose through the ranks, Pvt. Nichols left the military after less than a year in May 1989, winning a hardship discharge for reasons the military will not disclose.

Back on the farm in August 1992, Nichols sent a handwritten letter to the Evergreen, Mich., township clerk renouncing his right to vote because "there is total corruption in the entire political system from the local government on up through and including the President of the United States, George Bush."

The statement came as Nichols was being pursued by creditors for a variety of debts, including about $40,000 in unpaid credit card bills.

Nichols and his brother came to share a view that has gained some currency among beleaguered farmers: that U.S. money except gold and silver dollars lost all value in the 1930s, when the country went into debt. The two men also renounced their driver's licenses.

In November 1993, his 2-year-old son Jason died on the Decker farm. He was suffocated by a plastic bag while Terry and Marife were packing to move. The death was ruled an accident. The couple moved West.

In March 1994, Nichols was staying in a hotel in Junction City, Kan., when he answered a help-wanted ad in a farm journal, and took a job on a Marion, Kan., ranch.

"He was a very neat appearing individual. Very mannerly," said Jim Donahue, 62, owner of the Hayhook Ranch.

On March 16, 1994, a few days before he started the ranch job, Nichols mailed an affidavit to Marion County officials notifying them that he was not subject to the laws of the U.S. government, which he called a "fraudulent, usurping octopus."

Nichols complained about taxes being taken out of his paycheck. So the ranch, using exemptions allowed for farmworkers, deducted only social security taxes.

In late August 1994, Nichols gave Donahue 30 days notice, saying he was going into the gun-dealing business with a friend.

On Sept. 22, Nichols or McVeigh, using an alias, rented a storage shed outside nearby Herington.

On about Sept. 28, a cache of dynamite and detonator caps were stolen from a nearby quarry.

On Sept. 30, Nichols left. McVeigh helped him pack, Donahue said.

Nichols was back on the family's Michigan farm in January 1995, when he sought out local real estate dealers to buy a home in Herington, Kan.

He purchased the house on contract for $25,000 in February, putting down an undisclosed amount of cash and agreeing to pay the seller in monthly installments.

"We all thought he was just a little bit different," Herington real estate agent Georgia Rucker said. "We had to pry any information out of him."

On March 10, he stopped at Herington City Hall and asked computer coordinator Janet Novak what sort of chemicals were in the city's water, and if it contained fluoride.

When she told him a water department employee would have to get back to him, Nichols "appeared to be a little upset, but he never followed up," Novak said.

Nichols' ex-wife told the syndicated TV show "American Journal" that Nichols gave her a package in November 1994 and told her to open it if he failed to return in 50 days.

She opened the package the next morning and found letters of instruction for her and McVeigh. The letter to McVeigh, which she said she never delivered, said to clean out a storage unit "in the event of my death."

Padilla's co-worker said that Nichols had lived in the area intermittently since 1991. "He was in and out for quite some time," Kay Bignotti told reporters. "He was just some ex-husband hanging around for a while, spending time with his boy."

Bignotti added, "That boy loves his dad. . . . He can't admit or acknowledge that he may be involved in something so terrible."